Monday, June 13, 2005

More different views of the world

Some people think that the continuing problems the US has with our treatment of detainees are, depeding on how their brains are wired, either overblown or damning.
The Vice President saying that it is okay to practice dehumanising mistreatment of prisoners is okay because they are "bad people" is Osama argument too. Yet millions of Americans do not have a problem with that. They argue that in order to fight and win our war on terrorism we have to be very tough on the bad guys.
The other view is that we cannot claim the moral high ground if we are willing to sink to the lowest levels of persecution of people who are defenseless. And a detainee, though he may be an enemy, is defenseless while incarcerated.
I think we need have a national discussion about what America is. In my opinion why should we bother defending a country that practices barbarism. How can we complain about the mistreatment of people around the world when we do the same thing? The other side would say "That argument does not apply to us. We are the good guys and we need to do whatever it takes to defeat the bad guys."
I am sorry to say that is also the argument used by Hitler, Stalin, and Sadam Husain.
If we decide that we can do litterally anything to win, then we can build gas chambers to kill all the detainees. We can round up anyone who speaks out against our right to defend ourselves by any means, and kill them. We can shutdown TV networks, and newspapers.
I think that if a nation gives in to the temptation to use "any means necessary" the death warrent it is signing is it's own. All nations and governments who have held to that belief have been destroyed.

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